


Egbert Really Likes Checkers

by Team_Two_Cats



Series: Silly (Suikoden) Love Songs [4]
Category: Suikoden, Suikoden V
Genre: Board Games, Other, This Got Weird, dark secrets, fly on the wall, wtf?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-27 05:51:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19784551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Team_Two_Cats/pseuds/Team_Two_Cats
Summary: On the surface, Egbert seems like a rather deranged sewer-dwelling former noble with some serious anger issues. Beneath the surface, the man might have even more disturbing depths to explore. What might he be hiding from the world, and what does it have to do with…checkers?





	Egbert Really Likes Checkers

The inn is quiet but for the sound of Mueller and Richard fucking in the one room and Linfa and Marina listening in in the other, breathing heavy, hands busy beneath their dresses. Egbert cares not for these things. He sits at the checkers board and stares at his little army of pieces. A set for every person who has joined this little enterprise. Carved by hand. Lovingly. With magic and blood and power.

The checkers board is stone and older than anyone suspects. He found it deep in the tunnels beneath Stormfist, that even the Godwins _CURSE THEM AND BREAK THEM THE FILTHY DEVILS!_ do not know exist. Sindar tunnels. He’s sure of it. He’s been tempted to say something to scholars, to let them in on the little secret, but their arrogant chafes him. No, they don’t deserve to know. When he is reinstalled as lord of Stormfist and the Godwins _GOUGE THEIR EYEBALLS WITH RUSTED SPOONS AND SUP ON THEIR SWEET HUMORS!_ are deposed he can call them and make them grovel before him for the privilege of exploring the tunnels at his patronage. Until then…

He reaches for one of the sets, each one tenderly resting in an ornate box with the name of the model etched into the wood. How many hours, days, weeks has he spent watching them all, creeping through the narrowest tunnels of the castle, a rat in the walls, just to study them, to capture them perfectly? How long to collect the hair and skin to make his magic complete? He sets the case on top of the board and opens it. Inside are twelve figures. Twelve traitors.

With a hand shaking with rage he plucks the first from the case and looks at it. Sialeeds. Who had seemed so earnest in her desire to fight the Godwins _THE GODLESS FILTHY DEVILS RIP THE CRAVATS FROM THEIR THROATS AND GAG THEM WITH THEM!_ and their dastardly plots. But no. No. He simply can’t have her remain in his collection.

He places the piece on the stone board. He stares at it, and his eyes blaze with power. Burn with it. There is a mechanical hum and the smell of ozone, and the figure begins to smolder. It leaps into flames, the paint blistering, the whole piece—with a crack it shatters, still burning, crumbling to ash and heat. He pulls out the next one. And the next. And twelve times a fire burns before him, and twelve times he mutters his curses at this traitor, this woman who has gone over to the Godwins _A MILLION YEARS IS NOT TIME ENOUGH TO REMOVE EACH HAIR FROM MARSCAL’S MOUSTACHE WITH TWEEZERS!_ and their alliance of evil.

When it is done he brings out his own case and opens it, and one by one sets the tiny Egberts in the still-smoking ash. His eyes shine again, only this time with a different kind of like, and like a clockwork seduction the pieces begin to move. Little men, dancing in the wreckage, embracing one another, cavorting like was intended over the bodies of one’s enemies.

He laughs, watching, eyes aglow, and he does not stop laughing for quite some time.

***

In a dim corner of the inn, Raven and Frey watch on, the power of Raven’s rune mingling with Frey’s so that they both move invisibly.

“I told you he’s creepy as fuck,” Raven says. “Old bastard has some dark fucking secrets, let me tell you. This is why you can’t trust nobles, man. All of ‘em, madder than a pack of cut rabbits.”

Frey squints, then rubs his eyes, then squints again. Nope, still fucked up.

“I’ll…uh…talk to him,” he says. “Maybe he just needs someone to play…checkers against.”

“What he needs is a quick knife to the heart,” Raven says, “only I’m afraid it would only make things weirder.”

Frey sighs, then looks past Egbert to the room where Mueller and Richard are still enthusiastically consenting.

“Hey, do you think we could…?”

Raven grins. “We can sure as fuck try,” he says, and the two slink away, leaving Egbert to his solitary cackling.

**Author's Note:**

> So on my first play through I guess I missed the checkers minigame entirely (probably because I always kept Egbert in my part for the sweet, sweet potch. This time, though, I say that you get an epic skill for getting all the pieces, and the elusive large statues for some of it to. And I though, hey, this will be easy. It’s just checkers! And that’s when I learned that Egbert is a fuck. Just the worst. I did eventually beat him on hard mode to get the Lym pieces, but it took actually practicing and learning how to play him, which I was not expecting. By the end I could win about half of the games against him on hard. But seriously, the man is a devil himself.


End file.
